Thalassa
Permabanned
- Joined
- May 3, 2009
- Messages
- 25,183
- MBTI Type
- ISFP
- Enneagram
- 6w7
- Instinctual Variant
- sx
Perhaps unstable is too strong of a word to generalize ESFP mothers. I'm inclined to think more like heedless. My ESFP mother took her parental duties very responsibly, but there was a level of recklessness in her decision-making process. For example, she was not very good at managing money, and that combined with my INTP father's lax and often oblivious attitude about money turned into stupid investment decisions. She's certainly a risk taker and has a kind of "if everyone else is [making money/doing something] then why can't I?" attitude and happily jumps into an investment without much thought. But yes, it does help when there is a stabilizing figure in the equation. I would say that both my mother and father are doing much better financially (and emotionally) now that they have more "stable" spouses.
It's just my personal bias, of course, because I like stability and think it's very important for children. (This is why I think I'm probably enneagram 6 rather than 4.)
My mother made me not want to have children at a young age, for real, for paranoia of being anything like her.
It's not just me, either. My sisters have fond memories of being screamed at for wanting the last of the peanut butter, there literally being no food in the house, other people having to watch them all of the time, and not being taught "normal" girl things by mom, say, like how to shave their legs. Their clothes were often missing, and their socks mismatched. My ENFJ sister I think was probably the most traumatized by it, but she is thankful for other relatives she had who gave her more stability and order. My other two sisters are, unfortunately, a lot like my mother - one more so than the other.
I don't think my judgement of my mother would be so harsh if she'd had the sense to not have children before she was mature enough to take care of them. That's the whole problem, really, is that she was just thoughtless and selfish.
I also pretty much decided I fucking hated her when I was about 21 when I realized how little responsibility she took, even years later, for the things she did to her children when she was younger. I am so, so, so thankful for my grandparents. I think this constantly, even now that I've forgiven my mother and no longer feel any real anger towards her.
I mean, don't get me wrong, she's a better mother now, I suppose...I just would never, ever want to subject any child to what she did, nor to what I saw a couple of other members write about their ESFP mothers in this thread.
I was lucky to be the oldest child, and from a different father than my three younger sisters. They were able to legally adopt me without his interference, unlike the father of my three sisters, which is why they were raised by her (with the exception of a few months or a year here and there).